Have you had calls and mailings from print or online services that charge exorbitant rates to list concerts around the world? Here are two free listing services every orchestra should consider in addition to Instant Encore, about which I’ve already written.
Bachtrack the Future
While Bachtrack’s classical listing service is free, linking back to your site involves a fee. Yes, I know there are only so many hours in the day. And there are other online opportunities to list concerts, particularly locally. Who has the time to do all of them?
You be the judge: TrafficEstimate says BachTrack.com gets 31,200 visits a month. The site calls itself The World’s Best Way to Find Live Classical Music, and indeed its navigation is simple and intuitive. It’s merchandised well on Google.
A few months ago I enjoyed speaking with Alison Karlin, who financed the site with her husband David in 2008. Alison is particularly enthusiastic about Bachtrack’s Young Reviewer Program, which offers students free tickets to a concert in exchange for their writing a review. Indeed, Bachtrack is becoming more social: registered users can now post comments and reviews of concerts they’ve attended.
Become Eventful
Founded in 2004, Eventful lists concerts and other events in a calendarized database. Eventful claims that each week 15 million visitors “discover, promote, share and create” 4 million events on its site at eventful.com. Signing up as a performer, then listing concerts, is completely free. Particularly when big-name pops artists are involved, Eventful will merchandise concerts to market segments that are difficult for orchestras to reach.
Given that Eventful is one of the 500 largest sites on the Web, its look and its social platform seem a bit stale. Yet the potential rewards of listing concerts is in the interest of every orchestra. Unless an orchestra signs up as a performer, audiences cannot look up concerts by its name. It appears that only half of the two dozen largest orchestras in the country do this, let alone smaller organizations.
Your Thoughts?
What has your experience been with Bachtrack and Eventful? What other online listings have brought in audiences?
FYI, any concerts listed on InstantEncore (free to sign up as a partner, free to link back to your own website, free to update information at any time) are automatically posted on Eventful as well.
Cheers!
Hi Bruce,
I am a bit of an evangelist for Bachtrack, having taken the plunge and signed up for a paid listing of the London Symphony Orchestra’s concerts (the one with Buy Tickets buttons that take you to the organisation’s website).
Initially I was skeptical – like many orchestra marketing people I felt too busy to consider another site like this one, and I dodged the issue for a while (sorry Alison!!). But finially I gave in and decided that a trial couldn’t hurt.
As it turns out, Bachtrack is one of the top referring sites to the LSO website by income, and brings in much more income from ticket sales than we spend on click-throughs in a month. For example, in the first 6 months of 2010, we have achieved an ROI of 316%. And this is only the directly attributed sales I can track through Google Analytics.
I urge anyone in orchestral marketing to give Bachtrack a go and pay for the click-through service at least for a trial period. Just see what it can do for you.
And no, I’m not being paid by Bachtrack to say this; I just think they have found a great way of using a database of events all over the world, and have the enthusiasm (lots and lots and lots) for the subject to make it work. Good luck to them!
Jo Johnson
Digital Marketing Manager
London Symphony Orchestra